The evolution of stakeholders' perceptions of disaster: A model of information flow

Abstract

This paper proposes a diffusion model to measure the evolution of stakeholders' disaster perceptions by integrating a disaster message model, a stakeholder model, and a stakeholder memory model, which collectively describe the process of information flow. Simulation results show that the rate of forgetting has a significantly negative effect on stakeholders' perceptions and the incremental increase in the number of affected individuals has a positive effect on the maximum level of stakeholders' perceptions, but negative effect on the duration of stakeholders' perceptions. Additionally, a delay effect, a stagnation effect, and a cumulative effect exist in the evolution of stakeholders' perceptions. There is a spike at the beginning of the profile of stakeholders' perceptions in the Damped Exponential Model. An empirical test supports the validity of this model of stakeholders' disaster perceptions.